


stoic mind & bleeding heart

by psikeval



Category: Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Canon Compliant, Puppy Piles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikeval/pseuds/psikeval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their motley little crew of Immortan Joe’s belongings, staggered out to the desert in search of better arms to catch them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stoic mind & bleeding heart

Furiosa leaves the fool by the war rig, looking lost. She can’t help him with that. All she can do is offer a bike, a chance. The rest is none of her business.

It’s getting cold now and the wind’s died down, sand no longer stinging their eyes and skin. The girls stare up at the stars, at the clear expanse of the sky, like they can’t get enough, after so many nights in the vault. She used to love night runs for this. The quiet, and the dark.

“What do you think they’re called?”

“Do they all have names?”

“They must.”

“Or maybe they did.”

“Before.”

“They’re beautiful. _She_ would’ve—”

“Hush.”

The Vuvalini pass out scarves and weather-beaten jackets, blankets to sit on and to wrap around themselves against the chill. Cheedo wipes her eyes and tries to smile for Valkyrie and Toast; she wants so badly to be brave, enough that it blinds her to the truth. No one weak defies the warlord.

Only a few still skirt the group’s edges. Capable goes over the ridge to see the other side, a matching wasteland but one she’s never seen, with Nux clinging to her heels. She steadies him gently when he stumbles on the sand, and he looks at her the way he does, awe and the slightest edge of fear. The keeper of the seeds, the one the others just call Keep, jerks her head toward them, and the women smile, shake their heads, murmur amongst themselves.

“Acts like he’s never had a single bit of kindness.”

“When would he have?”

“Skittish for a war boy.”

“They’re like that, underneath it all.”

“Don’t trust him. Half-dead, silver on his gums.”

“And what about the other?”

“The fool.”

“They took him for his blood.” Furiosa looks up at them and sees it settle in, understanding where he fits. Their motley little crew of Immortan Joe’s belongings, staggered out to the desert in search of better arms to catch them.

And the fool, thinks Furiosa—but it seems like all he wanted was to cut his chain. They know about that well enough, too.

There’s not so much talk after that, just sharing what food Furiosa took from the citadel and a cup from what remains of their precious water. Toast and Dag lean tiredly together, Dag resting her cheek on Toast’s head, Toast playing with the ends of Dag’s white-blonde hair.

“It’s getting so tangled.”

“Maybe I’ll shave my head like the war boy.”

“Would you?”

“Fuck no.”

Toast laughs, and shoves her, and they kiss. A few of the Vuvalini coo. Furiosa can understand. Seeing them together after everything they’ve been through—it seems impossible, a mirage of something they’d all forgotten. Like rain.

Slowly, they all go from sitting to lying in a messy puzzle of bodies, limbs overlapping and heads pillowed on each other’s stomachs. Dag and Toast hold hands, fingers possessively linked, and Valkyrie flings an arm over Cheedo in a lazy protective sprawl. Capable, long since returned from her wandering, giggles into Dag’s arm when one of the older women pokes her ribs.

Nux is curled near the middle, his fingers outstretched to brush Capable’s ankle, like it’s all that he dares. As the others settle in close to ward off the cold, a few reach out to pat his side or rest their feet against him; Cheedo runs her fingers idly over his hairless head as she tucks herself into Valkyrie’s arms. Their war boy looks almost blissful, even shivering with fever.

Furiosa unhooks the harness from around her waist and shoulder, rubs the skin where it’s aching and lays the heap of metal where she can reach it in the morning. She feels a shift among the others and looks up to find the fool standing mutely above her.

He stares, somehow helpless, his eyes huge and sad in the dark.

What the hell, she figures.

“Hey,” she says, gesturing with half an arm toward the sand beside her. He hesitates.

“Has he got himself a blanket yet?”

“Yeah. But he won’t sleep.”

“He better.”

“Safer like this, believe me.”

“Warmer, too.”

“You might as well.”

“It’s good,” Nux offers quietly.

The fool folds under all their attention, like he can’t quite help it. There’s plenty of space between Keep and Furiosa, but his shoulders are broad and he frowns every time he brushes against them, like there’s a trick to it he can’t figure out. He holds himself warily, hunched in on himself as much as he can be.

Furiosa reaches down to cup her hand on his jaw, feels him shudder and press his face into her hip. For a moment she drags her thumb along the softness of his mouth, and the fool only wraps an arm around her legs and lets her. Keep pats fondly at his shoulders, and he lies still for it, only the slightest twitch in his neck, but it’s Furiosa he holds onto.

She tries to focus on that warmth and breathe, to close her eyes and not see fire or pole-cats.

“Rest now, child.”

“Long day tomorrow.”

“And the days after that.”

“Haven’t they always been, for us.”

“True enough.”

And safe enough too, in these wide open spaces, with nothing but sand for miles. Furiosa combs her fingers through the fool’s dusty hair, tries to let the day’s tension ease away. She shifted gears and turned from the path, and made it out alive. She’s tried to keep her promises.

They still might make it through this, if they’re careful. There’s a chance.

“Night,” the fool mumbles, unsure, half-muffled by her belt.

For some reason, it nearly makes her smile. “Yeah.”

 

\--

 


End file.
